Sixty Acres
Remembrances, Reveries, Reflections and Rambling
William Stielstra – February 7, 1996
A little more than a century ago a nine-year old Dutch immigrant boy and his family settled in the New World. He grew up, met a lovely Dutch-American immigrant, fell in love and married. Nick and Kate bought a sixty-acre parcel of land, built a home from trees harvested from the land. They raised a family of four daughters and five sons. Having been born of parents who had been peasants in Europe, they could never have owned such a large tract of land had they not emigrated. Life in the new World was exciting and promising and also demanding.
Of the sixty acres only about four and a half were suitable for profitable farming. Black, velvety muck soil, was beautiful to the eye and soft and cool to the bare feet of a farm boy. It was ideal for the growing of celery, onions and members of the cabbage family. From those four and a half acres, Nick and his wife Kate and his tribe of youngsters wrested a living. They were a happy family, richly blessed.
Other parts of the sixty were valued too, for other reasons. Much of it was used for pasture for the three milk cows and the teams of horses, first Prince and Maude (dappled grey) and then Roxey and Rex (sorrel colored). The horses seemed to have associate membership in the family, the cows were just good friends. Part of the pasture was in a low marshy area, a place of great beauty. Portions of the lowland were covered with verdant tall grasses, good for hay for the livestock. One of the memorable events of the calendar year was haying. The mowing of the hay using a horse-drawn mower, the raking of it, the pitching of it onto a horse-drawn wagon, using cool, long handled pitchforks, the riding to the barn atop the load, using a big horse-powered harpoon to lift huge servings of hay high up into the hay-mow, and finally, when the day was done, to leap from the high wooden timbers near the barn’s ceiling into the newly captured hap below; that was the thrill we had been anticipating since last year. The aroma of the new –mown hay remains for a lifetime.
Other parts of the lowland were home to a magical variety of birds: big black crows, gorgeous pheasants, chirping chickadees, red-winged black birds, dramatic partridge, friendly operatic warblers, modest sparrow, brilliant cardinals and many more. And they had animal cousins on the ground: rabbits, chipmunks, a myriad of squirrels, gophers and a few adventuresome deer.
As if abundance of birds and animals wasn’t enough, God blanketed this lowland with flowers, in a surfeit of colors. The clumps of marsh marigolds (we called them cowslips), their petals a rich, waxy yellow, resplendent, but still modest. Nearby them were trilliums, pure white trilliums, startling in their silent beauty. Near them were the violets, some azure blue, some royal blue. Their delicate little faces elicited eternal respect, even love. Wild iris, blue flags we called them, seemed like orchids. Their fragrance reached you before they came into view. The tiger lilies’ petals were sprinkled with freckles of little boys’ faces. The Jack-in-the-pulpits, humble, dutiful Capuchin monks solemnly exhorted their more gaudy neighbors against vainglorious display. The sweet aroma of wild roses drew one deeper into the woodland, there to be thrilled by their beauty. Nearby were water lilies. And more or less surrounding and protecting this hideaway flower world were pussy willows.
And a creek ran through it. Pine Creek. In the creek swam schools of minnows. Millions of minnows. They all seemed to gleefully play with the little humans who wanted to capture them, keep them for a while, then release them so that they could enjoy the larger world of which they were a part. There were all sorts of aquatic and amphibian creatures. Turtle, many varieties, sizes and colors, shared the creek with tadpoles, pollywogs, green frogs and brown toads. Snakes with intricate designer skins and fast-flicking pointed tongues mesmerized their little visitors. This must truly be the Garden of Eden, but without any apple trees.
Of Nick and Kate’s sixty acres, a very special part was “the Woods.” Twenty acres of giant primordial trees. They were very tall and very strong. They were giants. It seemed as though they were a forest, separately they were strong individuals. It seemed they wanted you to talk with them after you got well acquainted. If I could talk to them now I think I would say something like this:
“Beautiful forest, we are filled with kind thoughts and warm memories whenever we think of the times we spent with you. We remember that when we were kids you had long wild grapevines running up your trunks and into your branches. You invited us to swing from them. Like happy gorillas we did, in great, breath-taking circles. You let us use your grapevines to pull ourselves, hand-over-hand, to your lowest branches, then your enormous branches allowed us to climb to the giddy heights of your plumage.”
It was indescribably thrilling to climb to the very top of the “Emperor of the Forest,” a divine tulip tree. From that point of conquest a boy could view breath-taking vistas, could even see to where Pine Creek ran into a Lake Macatawa, which emptied itself into Lake Michigan, which found its way to the ocean. We had our own cyber space with the world. We never owned you, noble oaks and bright white birches, dark green cedars and silver beeches; YOU owned yourselves, each other and us. You invited us into your sanctuary, to walk the velvety floors of you forest, to listen to sweet silence. We had a piece of paper that said we had title to you, but we never really OWNED you.
You were a sacred trust. As long as we had our special relationship, you never heard the profane snarl of a chain saw. You never smelled the acrid odor of its fumes.
Some of you have been scarred by the jack knives of amorous or mischievous youths who carved arrow-pierced hearts and initials on your trunk. We want you to know they did that without our knowledge or permission. I must admit though, it doesn’t look so bad; you seem to have nicely tolerated it and to have worn it as some sort of badge of honor, with a wink to your neighbors who did not have such a badge to wear.
I must remember to tell you that zillions of squirrels asked me to convey their thanks to you for a bumper crop of beechnuts and acorns you gave them. They ate many of them as soon as you dropped them, then stashed others away for winter’s long haul. Oh, and the birds are grateful for the free rental places in your branches.
We’ll always miss you, of course. But then, we’ll never be far separated from you. In the fissures of our minds, in the depths of our hearts you’ll be real and abiding. We will vividly remember our quiet walks through you, our communion with you, our adventure in your habitat.
Edna St. Vincent Millay once observed: “Poems are made by fools like me, but only god can make a tree.” Well said.